Still broadcasting from Irving, Texas, Daybreak saddles up for a ride through the golden age of the American Western.
Today we return to the wide-open country of radio, where you didn’t need Monument Valley or a Technicolor sunset to see the West. All it took was the sound of a horse approaching, boots on a wooden boardwalk, a saloon door swinging open—and an imagination.
At the center of our journey is Gunsmoke, radio’s remarkably grown-up portrait of Dodge City, with William Conrad’s Matt Dillon confronting questions of justice, violence, mercy and the difficult business of building civilization on the frontier. Along the trail we’ll meet Jimmy Stewart’s wandering Britt Ponset in The Six Shooter, the sophisticated Paladin of Have Gun—Will Travel, the English observer of Frontier Gentleman, The Lone Ranger, and Tales of the Texas Rangers. We’ll also revisit the days when Hollywood Westerns such as Shane, Stagecoach, Winchester ‘73 and Red River came to life on radio.
And we’ll ask a distinctly Chestertonian question: What happens when freedom reaches the frontier?
Perhaps the great paradox of the Western is that freedom eventually discovers it needs civilization—and civilization discovers that it still needs courage.
So pour another cup of coffee and join us in Texas. The horses are saddled, the trail stretches west, and Daybreak is on the air.
Daybreak is sponsored by ChestertonHouse.net, our Chesterton Radio guest house in Atchison, Kansas.
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